The Québec Government Office in London held their 2019 Québec Annual Lecture on the 11th of November where they highlight interesting Québecois business. It was entitled How AI is fundamentally changing our relationship with technology. The guest speaker was Jean-François Gagné, the CEO of the company Element AI. This company is based in Montréal, Québec.
The lecture was conducted by M. Gagné. James Harding (co-founder of Tortoise Media) acted as a foil to M. Gagné where he asked him questions. Audience participation was encouraged throughout the discussion, worked excellently. Two particularly interesting questions members of the audience asked were why work on Artificial Intelligence (AI) advancement and why believe AI can ever be as creative as humans. Unfortunately, the time for this lecture/discussion was limited and not all questions could be answered.
Pierre Gabriel Coté, Agent General of the Québec Government Office introduced M. Gagné and Mr. Harding. M. Coté commented on the fact that the lecture was being held in the Royal Institution. In particular, he mentioned Michael Faraday who established the field theory of electromagnetism. One particular note as to how Mr. Faraday was involved with mines safety is that he worked with Sir Humphrey Davy, the inventor of miner’s safety lamps.
Afterwards, drinks and canapés were served. An interesting evening.